In a typical cloud data center environment, there is a large collection of interconnected servers that provide computing (e.g., compute nodes) and/or storage capacity to run various applications. For example, a data center comprises a facility that hosts applications and services for subscribers, i.e., customers of data center. The data center for example, hosts all of the infrastructure equipment, such as networking and storage systems, redundant power supplies, and environmental controls. In a typical data center, clusters of storage systems and application servers are interconnected via high-speed switch fabric provided by one or more tiers of physical network switches and routers. More sophisticated data centers provide infrastructure spread throughout the world with subscriber support equipment located in various physical hosting facilities.
Periodically, the networking and storage systems of the data center may need to be updated. For example, software installed and running on compute nodes or other devices within the data center may need to be either upgraded or replaced. Installing the software update typically requires the compute node or infrastructure device to transition offline and stop execution or management of customer applications so that the software update may be performed. During this period, customer traffic flow and customer applications executing within the cloud data center may be interrupted or entirely unavailable.